Walmart paid $3.5 bn to buy Flipkart shares from Binny Bansal, Tiger Global & others

Retail giant Walmart has paid around $3.5 billion to acquire shares in e-commerce major Flipkart from non-controlling stakeholders, including co-founder Binny Bansal and top investment firms Tiger Global and Accel, among others.

In a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing in the US, the company said that during the six months ended July 31, 2023, "the company paid $3.5 billion to acquire shares from certain Flipkart non-controlling interest holders and settle the liability to former non-controlling interest holders of PhonePe".

Additionally, during the six months ended July 31, the company received $0.7 billion related to new rounds of equity funding for the company's majority-owned PhonePe subsidiary.

Bansal reportedly received about $1-$1.5 billion from his shareholding in Flipkart.

Binny, along with Sachin Bansal, exited Flipkart after selling it to Walmart in 2018 for around $16 billion.

Last year, Binny Bansal sold his stake worth $264 million (more than Rs 2,000 crore) in the homegrown e-commerce platform to Chinese Internet giant Tencent.

In July, retail giant Walmart paid $1.4 billion to acquire VC form Tiger Global's remaining shares in Flipkart. According to a report in Wall Street Journal, Walmart paid the money to boost Flipkart's stake.

Walmart purchased Tiger Global's remaining holding in Flipkart to further cement its control of the Indian e-commerce giant.

Tiger Global made an overall gain of $3.5 billion on an investment of $1.2 billion.

Flipkart was earlier valued at $37.6 billion in a 2021 funding round. Walmart had 72 per cent share in Flipkart as last reported.

(With inputs from IANS)